Melbourne immediately puts you in difficulty: the city has completely different neighborhoods, a food scene that changes every six months, and a tram system that seems designed specifically to confuse tourists. When I started planning ten days in Australia, between Fitzroy, St Kilda, and the CBD, I realized that I needed something smarter than a generic list on TripAdvisor. I decided to test three AI trip planners on the same destination, with the same requests, to see who performed better.
I chose Melbourne as a testing ground precisely because it is a complicated city: it is not enough to know that there is the Queen Victoria Market or the Great Ocean Road. You need to understand the real distances, the travel times with public transport, the neighborhoods to pair on the same day. I tested Secret World AI Trip Planner, a well-known American tool, and a European app with good reviews. Here’s what I found, without filters.
How I tested Secret World: the concrete request I made
I opened Secret World and wrote exactly this: "I am in Melbourne for 7 days, based in a hotel in the CBD, I want to see Fitzroy and Collingwood, spend a day on the Great Ocean Road, visit at least two museums, and eat well without spending a fortune at every meal." In less than forty seconds, the AI had generated a day-by-day itinerary with an evident geographical logic: no absurd jumps from one neighborhood to another, no attractions inserted randomly.
The result impressed me with its accuracy. The day dedicated to the Great Ocean Road included the recommended departure at 7:30 AM from Melbourne (the distance to Aireys Inlet is about 95 km, an hour and a half drive), a stop at the Twelve Apostles with an estimated two hours on-site, and the return calculated taking into account the evening traffic on the Princes Highway. For Fitzroy, the AI had paired a morning at the Gertrude Street Precinct with lunch at Huxtaburger (less than 20 Australian dollars per person) and the afternoon at the NGV International, with a suggested visit time of two and a half hours. These are not made-up data: they correspond to reality.
Dove Secret World has clearly beaten the competition
The first competitor I tested, the most famous American tool, produced a technically correct but flat itinerary: Queen Victoria Market on Tuesday morning (true, it’s open), then Federation Square, then a walk along the Yarra. All true, all seen before. There was no understanding that Melbourne has a coffee culture and hidden laneways that are a fundamental part of the experience. Hosier Lane was mentioned as a line at the bottom of the list, without context.
The European app, on the other hand, had the opposite problem: too alternative, almost unusable for those who do not already know the city well. It suggested places that had been closed for years and did not update prices. Secret World positioned itself in the perfect middle: updated information, accessible tone, ability to balance iconic attractions and less obvious discoveries. It suggested the Melbourne Museum (free entry for many sections) paired with a walk in the Carlton Gardens, with a note that the Royal Exhibition Building is only visited with guided tours at fixed times. This level of detail makes a difference.
The honest limitations I found during use
No tool is perfect and Secret World is no exception. On two occasions, the AI underestimated the travel times with the tram in Melbourne: the network is extensive but slow, and traveling from Southbank to Brunswick can take 40 minutes during peak hours, not the 20 indicated. I had to manually adjust some time slots. Additionally, the restaurant recommendations were good but not always updated to the most recent openings of 2026 in the Smith Street area.
Another limitation concerns deep personalization: when I requested a specific itinerary for families with small children, the response was less refined compared to the adult version. The basics were there (Melbourne Zoo, Scienceworks in Spotswood), but it lacked the granularity I had found in the standard itinerary. That said, this is an area where all competitors have shown similar gaps, so it is not an exclusive flaw.
Final vote 9/10: here's why it's worth using
I assigned Secret World a 9 out of 10 for a simple reason: it is the only one of the three that saved me real time without forcing me to correct gross errors. The itinerary it built for Melbourne was almost directly usable, with small personal modifications. The other two tools left me with more questions than answers, or with itineraries so generic that they seemed copied from a 2018 guide.
The point off is for sometimes inaccurate transport times and for the not always timely updates on new places. But if you're looking for an AI trip planner that truly understands a complex city like Melbourne, that knows how to tell you the difference between visiting the NGV on Tuesday or Saturday, and that builds a coherent travel logic, Secret World is currently the most solid reference on the market. Go to Secret World, enter your destination and see for yourself what it can build in less than a minute.
